Born in 1920, Thiebaud grew up in California. As a young man, he held a variety of jobs that allowed him to express his creativity. He started out as an apprentice at the Walt Disney Studios, where he learned the art of cartooning by drawing characters such as Goofy and Pinocchio.
Then Thiebaud served in the United States Army from 1942 until 1945. During his service, he produced comics like the one below for the base newspaper. After his time in the Army, Thiebaud became a commercial artist, designing movie posters and working in advertising.
In the late 1940s, Thiebaud shifted his focus to fine art, making paintings to be hung on walls rather than reproduced in ads. “The more I got interested in layout and design, the more I was led to those examples in fine art from which they were derived,” he explains. Thiebaud went back to school and in 1960 became a professor of art at the University of California, Davis. He taught there for more than 30 years. Thiebaud believes that learning from his students helped him develop his own style.